How can I check if a URL exists via PHP?

Question

How do I check if a URL exists (not 404) in PHP?

Answer 1

$headers = @get_headers($this->_value);
if(strpos($headers[0],'200')===false)return false;

so anytime you contact a website and get something else than 200 ok it will work

Answer 2

the simple way is curl (and FASTER too)

<?php
$mylinks="http://site.com/page.html";
$handlerr = curl_init($mylinks);
curl_setopt($handlerr,  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
$resp = curl_exec($handlerr);
$ht = curl_getinfo($handlerr, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);


if ($ht == '404')
     { echo 'OK';}
else { echo 'NO';}

?>

Answer 3

I use this function:

/**
 * @param $url
 * @param array $options
 * @return string
 * @throws Exception
 */
function checkURL($url, array $options = array()) {
    if (empty($url)) {
        throw new Exception('URL is empty');
    }

    // list of HTTP status codes
    $httpStatusCodes = array(
        100 => 'Continue',
        101 => 'Switching Protocols',
        102 => 'Processing',
        200 => 'OK',
        201 => 'Created',
        202 => 'Accepted',
        203 => 'Non-Authoritative Information',
        204 => 'No Content',
        205 => 'Reset Content',
        206 => 'Partial Content',
        207 => 'Multi-Status',
        208 => 'Already Reported',
        226 => 'IM Used',
        300 => 'Multiple Choices',
        301 => 'Moved Permanently',
        302 => 'Found',
        303 => 'See Other',
        304 => 'Not Modified',
        305 => 'Use Proxy',
        306 => 'Switch Proxy',
        307 => 'Temporary Redirect',
        308 => 'Permanent Redirect',
        400 => 'Bad Request',
        401 => 'Unauthorized',
        402 => 'Payment Required',
        403 => 'Forbidden',
        404 => 'Not Found',
        405 => 'Method Not Allowed',
        406 => 'Not Acceptable',
        407 => 'Proxy Authentication Required',
        408 => 'Request Timeout',
        409 => 'Conflict',
        410 => 'Gone',
        411 => 'Length Required',
        412 => 'Precondition Failed',
        413 => 'Payload Too Large',
        414 => 'Request-URI Too Long',
        415 => 'Unsupported Media Type',
        416 => 'Requested Range Not Satisfiable',
        417 => 'Expectation Failed',
        418 => 'I\'m a teapot',
        422 => 'Unprocessable Entity',
        423 => 'Locked',
        424 => 'Failed Dependency',
        425 => 'Unordered Collection',
        426 => 'Upgrade Required',
        428 => 'Precondition Required',
        429 => 'Too Many Requests',
        431 => 'Request Header Fields Too Large',
        449 => 'Retry With',
        450 => 'Blocked by Windows Parental Controls',
        500 => 'Internal Server Error',
        501 => 'Not Implemented',
        502 => 'Bad Gateway',
        503 => 'Service Unavailable',
        504 => 'Gateway Timeout',
        505 => 'HTTP Version Not Supported',
        506 => 'Variant Also Negotiates',
        507 => 'Insufficient Storage',
        508 => 'Loop Detected',
        509 => 'Bandwidth Limit Exceeded',
        510 => 'Not Extended',
        511 => 'Network Authentication Required',
        599 => 'Network Connect Timeout Error'
    );

    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);

    if (isset($options['timeout'])) {
        $timeout = (int) $options['timeout'];
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $timeout);
    }

    curl_exec($ch);
    $returnedStatusCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    curl_close($ch);

    if (array_key_exists($returnedStatusCode, $httpStatusCodes)) {
        return "URL: '{$url}' - Error code: {$returnedStatusCode} - Definition: {$httpStatusCodes[$returnedStatusCode]}";
    } else {
        return "'{$url}' does not exist";
    }
}